Saturday, November 17, 2012

"The Israeli bombardment of Gaza continues with another 15 Palestinians killed on Saturday and the Hamas Government headquarters destroyed.

Meanwhile Israel has deployed more tanks to the border and called up thousands more reservists as fears of a ground offensive increase.At least forty-five Gazans have been killed and more than 390 wounded since Israel launched its aerial campaign on Wednesday.As the toll rises sirens have sounded in Tel Aviv for a third day as Israel says it shot down a rocket fired at the city while another fell in an open area.

And Arab League foreign ministers have been attending an emergency session in Cairo where they're expected to demand that Israel immediately halt its campaign.Jacky Rowland has been following events in Gaza."

"A central premise of US
media coverage of the Israeli attack on Gaza - beyond the claim that Israel is justifiably
"defending itself" - is that this is some endless conflict between two foreign
entitles, and Americans can simply sit by helplessly and lament the tragedy of
it all. The reality is precisely the opposite: Israeli aggression is possible
only because of direct, affirmative, unstinting US diplomatic, financial and
military support for Israel and everything it does. This self-flattering
depiction of the US as uninvolved, neutral party is the worst media fiction
since TV news personalities covered the Arab Spring by pretending that the US is
and long has been on the side of the heroic democratic protesters, rather than
the key force that spent decades propping up the tyrannies they were fighting.

Literally each day since
the latest attacks began, the Obama administration has expressed
its unqualified support for Israel's behavior. Just two days before the
latest Israeli air attacks began, Obama
told Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmud Abbas "that his administration
opposes a Palestinian bid for non-state membership of the UN". Both the US
Senate and House have
already passed resolutions unequivocally supporting Israel, thus earning the
ultimate DC reward: the head-pat from Aipac, which "praised the extraordinary
show of support by the Senate for Israel's struggle against terrorist attacks on
its citizens". More bipartisan Congressional cheerleading is certain to come as
the attacks continue, no matter how much more brutal they become......

By rather stark contrast,
Obama continues to defend Israel's free hand in Gaza, causing commentators like
Jeffrey Goldberg to
gloat, not inaccurately: "Barack Obama hasn't
turned against Israel. This is a big surprise to everyone who has not paid
attention for the last four years" (indeed, there are few more compelling signs
of how dumb and misleading US elections are than the fact that the only
criticism of Obama on Israel heard over the last year in the two-party debate
was the grievance that Obama evinces insufficient fealty - rather than excessive
fealty - to the Israeli government). That the Netanyahu government knows that
any attempt to condemn Israel at the UN would be instantly blocked by the US is
a major factor enabling them to continue however they wish. And, of course, the
bombs, planes and tanks they are using are subsidized, in substantial part, by
the US taxpayer......

UPDATE

According to Haaretz,
Israel's Interior Minister, Eli Yishai, said
this about Israel's attacks on Gaza: "The goal of the operation is to send
Gaza back to the Middle Ages." Let me know if any of the US Sunday talk shows
mention that tomorrow during their discussions of this
"operation"."

"In an interview with Al Jazeera, Palestinian journalist and Columbia Journalism School fellow Mohammed Omer said that Israeli air strikes have hit the Palestinian Prime Minister's office and Interior Minister's residence.

".....Hamas is an offshoot of the Brotherhood, and it was believed that the
Egyptian reaction to an Israeli assault on them would be markedly different with
the ascension of the Brotherhood to power in Egypt and the longstanding ties
between the two groups. However, many who have been following the Brotherhood
over the years believe otherwise.

"They are a reformist, not revolutionary, group. They have shown on many
occasions that they are more than happy to keep the [1979] Camp David peace
treaty with Israel and not radically alter Egyptian foreign policy. The excuses
are ready, let's build Egypt first and so on," said Hossam Hamalawy, journalist
and member of the Egyptian Revolutionary Socialists movement.

Morsi's measured response may not be enough to placate Egyptians, who have
already begun protesting against the latest Israeli offensive, with more
demonstrations scheduled for the next few days. The government response so far
falls short of demands articulated by Hamalawy, which include the permanent
opening of the Rafah crossing and not just for humanitarian reasons, but also to
provide relief to the besieged territory, and the abolishment of the Camp David
accords or, at the very least, a referendum on whether to keep the treaty....

This seeming disconnect between Brotherhood members and its leadership, as
well as secular opposition forces – whose commitment to the Palestinian cause is
no less unerring than Islamist forces – could potentially prove troublesome for
Morsi.

"The young base cadres of the Brotherhood are sincere about the Palestinian
cause," Hamalawy said, "what concerns me is the hypocritical and opportunistic
leadership that mobilised mass protests when they were in opposition – with
Morsi himself once calling for an end to Camp David – but now that they are in
power they will not act upon it.""

".....Nevertheless, Pillar of Defence will not achieve its ultimate goal of getting
the Palestinians to abandon their pursuit of self-determination and accept
living under the heel of the Israelis. That is simply not achievable; the
Palestinians are never going to accept being consigned to a handful of enclaves
in an apartheid state. Regrettably, that means Pillar of Defence is unlikely to
be the last time Israel bombards Gaza.

Over the long term, however, the bombing campaigns may come to an end,
because it is not clear that Israel will be able to maintain itself as an
apartheid state. As well as resistance from the Palestinians, Israel has to face
the problem that world opinion is unlikely to back an apartheid state. Ehud Olmert said in November 2007, when he was prime minister,
that if ‘the two-state solution collapses’ Israel will ‘face a
South-African-style struggle’, and ‘as soon as that happens, the state of Israel
is finished.’ One would think Israel’s leaders would appreciate where they are
headed and allow the Palestinians to have a viable state of their own. But there
is no sign that is happening; instead, Israel foolishly continues to rely on
military campaigns like Pillar of Defence to break the Palestinians."

"......Israel looks increasingly desperate. It is left with an anachronistic means
of self-defence: War-making in an age where war is becoming redundant.

Israel will never conduct a war the same way it did in the pre-Arab Spring
era. Arab public opinion would not allow it, nor will the emerging democracies
being secured in countries such as Egypt. Morsi's Egypt, committed still to
international agreements with Israel, give the Palestinians the kind of moral
and psychological depth Mubarak denied them. At least, they are no longer alone
and there is humanitarian and material aid at their disposal.

If the war partly is intended to test this new dynamic, Israel should
re-think: Millions and millions of Arab youth would not hesitate the call of
Palestine. Neither the Arabs nor the Israelis want this scenario of
belligerence. That is why Israel should not test the resolve of newly empowered
Arab masses for whom Israel is an occupier, usurper of Palestinian land, and a
killer of children. Nor should it test Morsi, who will beg to differ with
Western administrations, including the Americans, on the root causes of the
current conflict.

Through solidarity, these masses form a moral equaliser that give
Palestinians some parity in a war of narratives in which Israel, at official and
public levels, has often enjoyed largely unfettered and uncritical Western
support."

Israel must end its
provocations and cycles of retaliations if it ever wants to achieve peace.

By Marwan Bishara

Al-Jazeera

"Watching the escalation in Israel/Palestine and the preparations for a
possible all-out assault on the Gaza Strip, one hears many insightful and
original commentary. Alas, when it's original it's usually inaccurate, and when
it's right it's hardly new. Netanyahu, like his predecessors, is using the
assassination of Hamas's leader Ahmad Jabari and subsequent escalation to
undermine the Palestinian leadership's (Hamas and Fatah's) political standing
and improve his own political chances, by underlining Israel's national security
over economic security as the core issue preoccupying the nation, ahead of the
elections.To make the point, here's a piece I published six years ago titled,
"Mideast: End the cycle of retaliation", with minor changes of
dates, names etc. As they continue to repeat themselves tirelessly and recycle
the same claims, I shall repeat my analysis......"

"The Israeli cabinet has
authorised
the call-up of 75,000 reserve troops as fears grow that the prime minister,
Binyamin Netanyahu, will order a ground invasion after Egyptian efforts to
broker a ceasefire did not make headway and Hamas fired a rocket at
Jerusalem.

The US was scrambling to
prevent a further escalation of what it described as a "very, very dangerous
situation" in Gaza. Britain warned that a
ground invasion could cost Israel international
support.

But concerns that Netanyahu is preparing to escalate the assault were
strengthened as he held a strategy session with senior ministers. Also, the size
of the call up is on a scale comparable to Israel's invasion of Lebanon six
years ago, and several times larger than the number of reservists drafted during
the last major incursion into Gaza in 2008. Tanks were seen gathering near the
Gaza border, and roads in the area were closed to Israeli civilians.

Israel's deputy foreign minister, Danny Ayalon, told CNN that a ground
invasion could come before the end of the weekend if the rocket attacks
continue......"

"Air strikes from Israel have continued to take a devistating toll on Gaza as Hamas landed a rocket in an uninhabitated area of Jerusalem.

Among those killed on Friday was a two-year-old Palestinian boy.

Elsewhere in Gaza, continued Israeli air strikes destroyed a family-owned textile factory that employed at least 20 workers and a food store.

The Hamas Interior Ministry was also decimated, but the group continued to launch rockets into Israel despite Tel Aviv announcing it would hold its fire while Hesham Qandil, Egyptian prime minister, was in the enclave.

Tel Aviv's statement came on the condition that Hamas fighters also halt any attacks on Israel.

"As Israel and Hamas fighters attack each other, fears are growing that their conflict could develop into a full-scale ground war in the Gaza Strip. Israel says all options are on the table. Hamas says dark days await Israel. It also says it has, for the first time, fired missiles at Tel Aviv. So, what are the motives and the consequences of this latest series of attacks on Gaza? And could these be the opening shots in Binjamin Netanyahu's election campaign?"

"Israel's campaign of air strikes on Gaza's continued for a second night.The number of casualties is rising and Hamas' retaliation is causing panic inside Israel.

For the first time, rockets fired from Gaza have reached the outskirts of Tel Aviv. Air raid sirens sounded there for the first time in more than 20 years.

Inside Gaza, the bombardment is causing so many injuries that hospital staff face being overwhelmed. And the return fire into Israel is also causing casualties.Al Jazeera's Nadim Baba reports from Gaza."

In the nations of the Arab
spring, people are now rising up to demand Palestinian rights as well

".....Since he won the
presidency, Mohamed
Morsi has tried to be a pragmatic politician. He pressed on with "security
co-ordination" with Israel in Sinai; he started sealing up the tunnels that
provide a lifeline to the besieged Gazans; he rejected the proposal of a free
trade area on the borders between Egypt and Gaza; and he sent an ambassador to
Tel Aviv with a fulsome letter
to Shimon Peres. And so he found himself uncomfortably cosied up with
remnants of the Mubarak regime and aficionados of the military government.

The rank and file of the Muslim Brotherhood and their Freedom and Justice
party had a hard time justifying the actions of their man in the presidential
palace to the rest of the country. Progressives and liberals mocked them for
their big talk on Palestine all the years they were in opposition, and their
resounding silence now they were in power. Skits about Morsi's "love letter" to
Peres appeared online and parodies on Cairo walls.

Now, the Israelis have
pushed him – pushed him perhaps into a position where he'll find himself more at
ease in his presidency, and more in tune with the people. Large groups of young
Egyptians have been heading for Gaza; my youngest niece is one of them. Like the
efforts of the world's civil society to send ships to Gaza, young Egyptian
civilians with a passion for freedom are going to support their friends. And on
a more "official" level, medics and pharmacists have already arrived there. Abdel
Moneim Aboul-Fotouh, a presidential candidate and doctor, has gone – as he
did in 2008 during Israel's "Operation
Cast Lead", long before he had political intentions. The Arab Doctors' Union
has called for donations and volunteers.....

In every Arab country where the people rise up to demand their rights, they
demand action on Palestinian rights as well. Tunis has just announced that its
foreign minister is heading for Gaza. In Jordan today, hundreds of thousands
were on the streets and, as well as demanding the fall of their own regime,
they're also calling for justice for Palestine. Protesters are out in Libya. In
Egypt, people are heading for Rafah. We are heading for true representation of
the people's will in the region and, in the coming years, governments will need
to follow the road shown to them by their people."

Israel is continuing to pound the Gaza Strip with air strikes amidst fears
that Israel could soon launch a ground invasion into Gaza. Israeli troops, tanks
and armored personnel carriers are now massing near the Palestinian territory.
Earlier today, 85 missiles exploded within 45 minutes in Gaza City, sending
black pillars of smoke. At least 21 Palestinians have died in the most recent
round of violence, while three Israelis died on Thursday. Israel said it
launched 150 air strikes overnight, while Palestinians fired a dozen rockets
into Israel. Israel has started to draft 30,000 reserve troops in a sign the
assault may soon widen. Among the casualties of Israeli violence was the
11-month-old son of a BBC Arabic journalist, Jihad
Misharawi. Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Kandil traveled to Gaza today to
condemn the Israeli attack. For more, we get a report from Rafah by Palestinian
journalist Mohammed Omer, who says, "One thing that we ought to talk about here
is the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip. This is a situation of
targeting a population of civilians, exactly like Israel is shooting in a
fishbowl. And there is no shelter, and there is nowhere to run for the general
population. Gaza is living in a very dire situation." We also speak with Gershon
Baskin, the founder of the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information,
who was the initiator of the secret talks between Israel and Hamas for the
release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit...."

Israel broke an informal ceasefire on Wednesday by assassinating Hamas
military commander Ahmed Jabari in an air strike. The Israeli peace activist
Gershon Baskin, who helped mediate talks between Israel and Hamas in the deal to
release Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, has revealed Jabari was assassinated just
hours after he received the draft of a permanent truce agreement with Israel,
which included mechanisms for maintaining the ceasefire. Baskin, the founder of
the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information, joins us from
Jerusalem. We also speak with Palestinian journalist Mohammed Omer based in Gaza...."

Thirteen-year-old Ahmad Abu Daqqa is mourned during his funeral in Abbassan
al-Kabira, east of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, 9 November. The boy
was shot in his stomach by an Israeli soldier while playing football outside his
home.(Anne Paq / ActiveStills)

"Video posted on YouTube from Al-Aqsa TV shows a drone that Palestinian
resistance fighters say they shot down over Gaza.
Israeli government spokesman Ofir Gendelman tweeted, “The drone that Hamas
showed on TV is not Israeli and is not in service in the IDF. This is another
failed Hamas PR prop.”

However examination of images of the drone suggest it is Gendelman who is
lying. In the TV clip, the anchor identifies the downed drone as a “Skylite B,”
an unmanned aerial vehicle made by the Israeli weapons firm Rafael.

Compare the screenshots below from the Al-Aqsa TV clip with the image of the
Skylite B from the Rafael website
and marketing
brochure and decide for yourself who is telling the truth....."

Hamas interior ministry hit

Early on Friday, 85 missiles exploded within 45 minutes in Gaza City.One
missile hit the interior ministry and another hit an empty house belonging to a
senior Hamas commander.
Those strikes, together with an attack on a generator building near the home
of Gaza's Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, signaled that Israel is
expanding its offensive beyond military targets.

A Palestinian firefighter tries to
extinguish a fire after an Israeli air strike on the building of the Hamas
ministry of interior in Gaza City. Photograph: Mohammed Salem/Reuters

"Egypt's prime minister,
Hisham Kandil, arrives in Gaza on Friday as the Israeli military and Palestinian
militants continue to exchange fire. Shortly after Kandil arrived, rockets fired
from Gaza hit several sites in southern Israel. The Israeli air force responded
with an attack on the house of Hamas's commander for southern Gaza."

Syria opposition to receive more support from UK, says William Hague

"Frustrated with Obama's re-election and his pledges to pursue diplomacy with
Iran, Netanyahu engineered an offensive on the last place Israeli Defense Forces
can wreak havoc with total impunity. Don't expect condemnation of the Gazan
assault from Gulf Arabs or Western "Friends of Syria", but Egypt could draw new
battlelines...."

Here is the reaction of the Saudi king:

No support for Gaza and no condemnation of Israel! His "majesty" says that we should be rational and calm down!

"Barack Obama is pressing the Egyptian leadership to help de-escalate the
bloody conflict in Gaza amid concern that a further ratcheting up of violence,
such as a major Israeli ground assault, could damage the peace accords between
Cairo and Jerusalem.

The Egyptian prime
minister, Hisham Kandil, is expected to lead a delegation to Gaza on Friday for
talks with Hamas leaders on quelling the fighting [Not support of the Palestinians as Egypt claims!] which has escalated with the
Israeli assassination of the Hamas military leader, Ahmed Jabari, and the firing
of hundreds of rockets from Gaza into Israel. The fighting has now
claimed civilian lives on both sides.

"Protesters in the Jordanian
capital, Amman, clash with riot police on Wednesday, after two days of
demonstrations against a hike in fuel prices. More than 1,000 people spilled
into the streets of Amman and smaller protests erupted in several provincial
towns on Tuesday after Islamist and tribal opposition groups said they would
demonstrate."

Everything we see today in
Israel/Palestine is a result of the "inability to put the Oslo zombie out of its
misery".

By Mark LeVine

Al-Jazeera

"....Once the fighting dies down, Israel will threaten to end its support for Oslo
and even topple the PA if it goes ahead with its fight for greater international
recognition. But there's little chance it would follow through on such a threat,
since the alternative to the Oslo process would be direct rule over the Occupied
Territories, thus making the one-state choice for Palestinians.

Sadly, if the Arab Spring was in good measure inspired by the two Palestinian
intifadas, there seems to be no scenario in which a robust Palestinian civil
society can lead the kind of intifada that brought an end to the rule of
Tunisia's Ben Ali or Egypt's Mubarak. Neither Israel nor the international
community, nor the contending poles of the Palestinian leadership will allow
such a movement to emerge.

"The People want the downfall of the regime!" is clearly a sentiment most
Palestinians would agree with. But unlike Egyptians, Tunisians, or even Libyans
and Syrians, Palestinians must simultaneously fight multiple occupations -
against their own leadership as much as against Israel.

At the same time, like an abuser whose actions are celebrated by his friends
rather than condemned, Israel has little if any incentive begins treating
Palestinians like full human beings. But if this latest round of bloody violence
can help finally destroy the Oslo illusion, it might just force the two sides to
look across the so-called Green Line and begin the long, arduous but absolutely
necessary project of imagining a common and equal future in which the full
humanities and rights of both sides is finally respected."

DEMOCRACY NOW!
"Israel is threatening to launch a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip after
breaking an informal ceasefire with an ongoing series of deadly attacks. At
least 13 Palestinian civilians have been killed, including a baby and a mother
pregnant with twins, in addition to more than 100 wounded. Israel says it has
launched the strikes to prevent Palestinian rocket fire, but the latest round of
violence began last week when Israeli troops killed a young boy in Gaza. The
situation has escalated since Saturday, when Palestinian militants fired at an
Israeli military vehicle near the Israel-Gaza border. After Palestinian militant
groups agreed to an informal truce on Monday, Israel broke two days of quiet
with Wednesday’s attack. Israel’s attack on Gaza marks its largest since the
U.S.-backed operation that killed more than 1,300 Palestinians nearly four years
ago. We go to Gaza City to speak with Palestinian journalist Mohammed Omer......."

This will be presented by Israel – and sympathetic or careless world media –
as another justification for Israel’s attacks on Gaza to stop rocket fire. But
this narrative is false.Where there was calm and an effective truce, Israel chose to shatter
it, bringing about the current deadly escalation.

In general, Palestinians fired rockets, or attacked the Israeli army, as a
response to Israeli attacks, seeking to avoid escalation and publicly embracing
a truce. Take a look at the sequence:......."

"......Understanding that Israel’s real agenda is not to fight Iran or do anything
to help stabilize Syria and accepting instead that Benjamin Netanyahu intends to
expand and solidify a Greater Israel provides some clarity to developments in
the Middle East. Palestinians living between the Mediterranean and the Jordan
River in Israel, Gaza, and on the West Bank will in twelve years constitute a majority
of the indigenous population, but they will be a majority forced into ever
contracting enclaves and hemmed in by Israeli force majeure on all sides.
It is not a pleasant prospect, being somewhat akin to the sputtering bomb
cartoon that Netanyahu produced in the United Nations. Unfortunately, only the
United States can influence the Israelis to rethink their destructive policies,
which will ultimately also do grave damage to the American people, but there is
no sign that any US politician has the courage to face the facts and do what is
right."

Baby of BBC Arabic cameraman killed

The baby of a BBC Arabic
cameraman was killed by the Israeli air strikes on Gaza on Wednesday, the corporation
says.

Jihad al-Masharawi, a Palestinian
employee of BBC Arabic in Gaza, carries the body of his 11-month-old son Omar,
who according to hospital officials was killed by an Israeli air strike in Gaza
City 15 November, 2012. Photograph: Mohammed Salem/Reuters.......

Muslim Brotherhood calls for Egypt to cut ties with
Israel

Has no one told them that the Muslim Brotherhood is in power in
Egypt?......

Audio: Muslim Brotherhood facing criticism over Gaza
response

A lot of eyes are on the response by the Muslim Brotherhood government in
Egypt, especially given its historic ties to Hamas, but Abdel Rahman-
Hussein, in Cairo, says now that the group is in power it seems to be
adopting a pragmatic approach taking "pretty much the same measures that Hosni
Mubarak took during Operation Cast Lead" in 2008-09. He said:

The Brotherhood are facing criticism already that they are not doing anything
that is too different from a regime that was overthrown by the Egyptian people
and was deemed complicit in the siege of the people of Gaza ...The Muslim
Brotherhood has always criticised the Mubarak regime basically for letting
things happen on its border because Gaza's on the border with Egypt and the
Sinai border and I think a stronger Egyptian position would have made Israel
think twice about carrying out such an operation, not knowing what would happen
on the other side of the border ...
There will be demonstrations [in Cairo] today and tomorrow but that's what
happened in 2008. The Muslim Brotherhood along with a lot of secular opposition
forces held a series of protests against the Israeli offensive during that time
but they weren't in power back then. They're in power now and it seems that,
basically, they're pretty much going down the same route [as the Mubarak
regime]......"

"Gunmen have attacked two
police stations in Jordan as demonstrators threw
rocks and denounced their king over price hikes in a rare spike of violence.

One attacker was killed in the assaults, the first fatality in demonstrations
in the kingdom this year. Thirteen police officers were among 17 seriously
wounded in the attack in Jordan's north, police said. A police corporal was
critically wounded in the second.

Two days of angry protests have threatened to push the US-allied kingdom into
a wave of unrest.
King Abdullah II has so far steered his nation clear of the Arab Spring that
has swept across the region, toppling the rulers of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and
Yemen along the way. But Jordan's massive budget deficit and other economic woes
could increasingly push the population into the opposition camp......"

"Hamas spokesperson Osama Hamdan speaks to Al Jazeera about the latest Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip, following the killing of Hamas's Ahmad Jabari.

"Now they have started not only an attack, but it's a long operation against Gaza. They are working to target the local leaders and also some political leaders; because of that we are expecting some days of violence," he said.

"Everyone knows that Ahmed Jabari was the leader of al-Qassam troops during the war on Gaza 2008-2009 and he was the man behind the [2006] kidnapping of Gilad Shalit. So [the Israeli military] has started with this man because they believe they have a long revenge for him."

"We will respond, that must happen. I have to say clearly we know that this road of retaliation is very long and we have to sacrifice. And we have sacrificed a lot."

[Update: Since this interview was carried out, Al Jazeera has confirmed that Ahmad Jabari's son was not killed in the Israeli attack as Osama Hamdan mentioned.]"

"World-renowned political dissident, linguist, author and MIT professor Noam Chomsky joins us to discuss his recent trip
to the Gaza Strip, where he publicly called on Israel to put an end to the
blockade on the Hamas-ruled coastal enclave. "[Gaza] is a lesson for people from
the West," Chomsky says. "If they can struggle on under really harsh and brutal
conditions, it tells us we ought to be doing a lot more." Chomsky also comments
on President Obama’s re-election, saying: "There are two good things: one, the
worst did not happen, and it might have. The second is, it is over. We can put
it behind us and get back to work."....."

"Rebel units of the Free Syrian Army are in control of some areas in the outlying suburbs of the capital Damascus. Al Jazeera followed one FSA unit in the capital as they tracked and captured a Palestinian man who they suspected of collaborating with the pro-Assad militia. Al Jazeera's Hashem Ahelbarra has the story."

"CAIRO, Nov 14 2012 (IPS) - An
ultraconservative Salafi cleric recently sparked outrage among Egypt’s liberal
circles when he attempted to justify his opposition to a proposed constitutional
article that would outlaw the trafficking of women for sex.

Speaking on privately-owned Al-Nas satellite
channel, Sheikh Mohamed Saad El-Azhary said he feared the proposed article could
conflict with the local practice of child marriage. He explained that in Egypt,
particularly in rural areas, there is a culture of marrying off girls as soon as
they hit puberty.

“The important thing is that the girl is ready and can tolerate marriage,”
El-Azhary declared......"

"....Faced
with a popular consensus in Israel and political backing in the US Congress for
a hard line with the Palestinians, Mr Obama is an unlikely champion even of the
Palestinians' ambition to win observer status at the United Nations. A vote on
this matter is currently scheduled for November 29, with Mahmoud Abbas
apparently hoping that the anniversary of the 1947 UN partition plan for
Palestine will provide emotional resonance. Predictably, the US and Israel have
threatened economic retaliation if the statehood bid proceeds.....

The reality is that the White House is stuck with an Israeli government, with
or without Mr Netanyahu, that rejects an agreement with the Palestinians. As
tensions flare again on the Israel-Gaza border, as they did in the run-up to the
last Israeli election, it looks disturbingly like four more years of the
same."

The beginning of the video, which the news agency cannot verify, purports to
show a car in Damascus crushed by a government tank, with the driver's body
still inside......

Surface-to-air missiles

Syrian rebels may have more
powerful shoulder-mounted surface-to-air missiles than previously thought, if
photographs posted by Brown Moses (Eliot Higgins) on
his blog are correct.

His photos show a man with
what he identifies as an SA-16 (“reportedly captured by
Ansar al-Islam from an air defence in East Ghouta, near Damascus”) and an
SA-24 (“apparently looted from Babla Base air defence base by Ansar al-Islam”) -
“the latest generation of Russian surface to air missiles”.

"The European Union's role as a major funder of the Palestinian Authority and
advocate of the two-state solution is undermined by its status as a major market
for the settlements that keeps them prosperous. While the United States'
economic support of Israel is openly one-sided and "unconditional", it seems the
EU's financial strategydeviously ensures the very occupation the grouping is
supposedly trying to end....."

American presidents come and go, but few, if any, seem to have the will to change the status quo in the Middle East.

By Larbi Sadiki
Al-Jazeera

".....
Thus US foreign policy calls for readjustment. In the context of the Arab Spring it must not be driven by the imperative of introducing "order" into the lives of "Orientals". Security seems to be the constant that informs foreign policy-making before and after the Arab Spring; and this happens at the expense of development and a degree of self-determination such as in democratic reconstruction.

Beyond security and oil

Moreover, Western leaders seem hell bent on repeating the same mistakes of manipulating "elites", recruiting them into their spheres of influence. In theory, many Western actors stand for institution-building and due process; in practice, it is largely business as usual seeking policy preferences and objectives through communication with elites, sometimes with limited legitimacy.

Policy failure is obvious in Bahrain, where conflict resolution is managed through dialogue with elites in Manama and Riyadh. Similarly, the impasse in the Palestinian question can be put down to preference to deal with select politicians in the polarised polity. So instead of using existing legal UN frameworks as the basis for engaging with peace-making, reference is made to "client" leaders who speak and act, in the absence of legitimate mandate, on behalf of the occluded populace, the Arab "Orientals", often assumed to be silent, passive and in need of mentoring and guidance.

Obama's second term will not be a promenade in the White House given the onerous tasks awaiting him on the domestic front, especially in a Congress dominated by the Republicans. Even with a leaf from the books of Eisenhower, Carter and Clinton, the Middle East will prove more difficult to navigate if the moral compass of America is limited by the blind spots of security, oil and client-politicians."